The Reality behind a 2nd EU Referendum

First off, let me get my opinion out of the way and then I’ll get down to the hard facts about the situation. I’m angry, I am well and truly in the Remain camp; ever since I woke up Thursday morning I’ve walked around with an anger in the pit of my stomach, and what’s worse? I have no idea where to direct my anger. Half a nation voting Leave was idiocy, a large part of me will always resent anyone who voted Leave, whether they are family, friend, or just a random guy on the street, a large part of me will never be able to forgive them. Strong statement? Yeah, well so was deciding to leave the EU.

Along with all of this, the same part of me shall never be able to forgive myself; I didn’t campaign to stop this happening, mainly because in my naivety I thought people were too intelligent to let a Leave vote win. I was wrong, and in my folly I did nothing, I stood by and let this happen

To all those who say that this was a win for democracy. No. You’re wrong. This wasn’t a win for democracy, this was a win for immorale politicians. This was a win for the ignorant and easily-led of our society. A win for the people who have been kicked by life, and have now been wrongly convinced that leaving the EU will solve their problems. Since the result we’ve already seen Farage weasel his way out of his claim regarding the £350 million a week, and the thing that breaks my heart the most? I’m not even surprised; I’d hoped that the politicians would realise that this was a serious issue that would have ever-lasting repercussions, and I’d hoped that because of this they wouldn’t have lied, hidden the truth, and then smirk and deny it when called out on it. I was wrong; so no this was not, and never will be a win for democracy.

Over the past few days I’ve been so angry that when I saw the petition for the 2nd EU referendum gathering momentum I jumped on board without really thinking about any of it. It would be great if the petition would work, wouldn’t it?

But now it’s time for the facts…

So a petition like this needs over 100,000 signatures to be debated in Parliament, which isn’t that many considering this petition now has over 3 million signatures, sounds good so far, right?

Not quite, the problem with this is that for a petition to be likely to pass a Parliamentary debate it can’t just be worded in anyway, it needs to be reasonable. So this petition actually suggested that there should be another referendum if certain requirements are not met; the requirements here being a less than 60–40 split, and a less than 75% voter turnout. Meaning that our initial EU referendum meets both of these criteria and, if the petition were to be accepted by parliament, that the voting could be done again.

Now on to the real kick in the balls. A law cannot be brought in with retrospective action; the legal case for this is R v R 1991. Think about it, bringing in a law that made something that had already happened illegal would be disastrous; the same goes for retrospectively making our initial referendum invalid. This means that even if it was to be made a law, it could have no impact on sending the EU Referendum to a second vote.

However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t sign it, Parliament will still have to debate it. The more signatures on the petition means the more weight behind it; alone the petition cannot force a second EU Referendum, but a strong support for the petition along with other factors might be able to.

Here’s a link to the petition; sign it!